Description

This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 11/10/2012

SU 85 SE
991/2/10017

ALDERSHOT
QUEEN'S AVENUE
(South East side)
Smith-Dorrien House

(Formerly listed as Smith-Dorien House)

II

Barracks institute, now offices. Dated 1908, probably by H B Measures, architect and the Director of Barracks Construction. Brick with stone dressings, lateral stacks and slate hipped roof. Central hall with offices to sides and rear. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys; 5-bay range. Symmetrical front has square towers flanking central gable and wings with hipped roofs set back, flush cill and head bands, and round-arched mullion and transom windows. Towers have moulded elliptical-arched doorways with radial fanlights and double doors with raised panels, keyed oculi with glazing bars, and moulded string to recessed top section of tower with round-arched cross windows to each side, and octagonal cupola with copper-clad domes with finials; between is a large 5-light window beneath a parapet, divided at floor level by a stone panel, each section with 2 transoms, the gable above set back with an ashlar top section and a wide segmental-arched 5-light window. Flanking blocks have 3-light transom windows, with matching lights to the 2:5-bay returns with single-storey rear sections over which the roof sweeps, and two 3-light gabled dormers in the main roof Rear has single-storey range beneath the rear gable, as the front. INTERIOR: large 3-bay central rooms have cast-iron central columns, the ground floor has round-arched arcades to the sides and rear with architraves and moulded cornices, first-floor room with elliptical arches over railed galleries, front stairs from entrances with turned balusters and column newels; doorways with swan's neck pediments. HISTORY: Institutes provided rooms for reading, meetings, study and games. They were part of the late C19 effort by the army to provide wider entertainment opportunities for the soldiers. This is one of the most distinguished institutes, and one of the more architecturally interesting army buildings at Aldershot, representative of rising standards of training in the Army. (Childerhouse T: Military Aldershot, the first fifty years: London: 1990-).

Listing NGR: SU8628151360

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Smith-Dorrien House at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q26656339

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Staffordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Listed Buildings, Conservation Areas and Monuments
• 
  Renovating Old Houses: Bringing New Life to Vintage Homes (For Pros By Pros)
• 
  A Buying and Owning a Listed Building: A Brief Guide
• 
  The Listed Buildings and Other Principal Structures at the Royal Gunpowder Mills Waltham Abbey